I agree on the rape issue–I’d extend that to any situation where hte author can only think of how to humanize a woman by victimizing her, in any way–as if victimization is the basis of being female. One ought to be able to write strong, interesting female characters who act and feel real without turning them into lumps of blubbering goo. And ditto on the “victim falls in love with rapist” scenario–used way too often, completely unrealistic.

I don’t know if I have any other hot buttons. No, wait–when a character who is “different” is stuck in the plot only to demonstrate the evils of prejudice and to educate the main characters. That bugs me. The black character who’s only there to suffer racism, the female character who’s only there to struggle valiantly against sexism, the disabled character who’s only there so that the main character can have an epiphany about the meaning of life…. It’s like the author is trying earnestly to make some point about equality, which is lovely, but they don’t quite believe it themselves, or at least not enough to conceive of characters unlike themselves as full human beings with their own stories to tell that don’t completely revolve around their differences.

And just for the record, I don’t think writers shouldn’t write about the issues that bug me, but writers should be aware that some topics are not going to sit well with people and if you write about such topics you can expect that some readers won’t ever read your work again if they are gravely offended. Does that mean you should not put it in? Not at all. If you think it belongs, then do it. Just don’t expect everybody to jump up and down in magical love with your rape scene or necrophilia scene

Ann: I agree. We can all be offended by someone and being a writer means you *can’t* let that fear get in the way of the story. It’s that aftermath that means so much and gets ignored sometimes. I liked the premise of the DaVinci Code, in so much as it took a really cool fictional approach to actual objects in the world. But damn, it is fiction and the characters were sticks and all that, but I liked the idea of it. The stereotype thing is I think close to what my feelings about the rape issue are. If you make the rape a stereotype, you don’t have to dig into the individual reactions of the characters. If you make a character a stereotype, you don’t have to dig into his/her quirks and fears and issues. In a lot of ways, it amounts to the same thing.

Dumb sheep . . . I agree. And heels. I watched a CSI Miami where the blonde CSI chick was in twelve inch heels at a crime scene. I was telling my TV a thing or two. You might be interested in this: http://sqt-fantasy-sci-fi-girl.blogspot.com/
It’s a blog about action women. She didn’t include, but I added in comments, Yancy Butler in Witchblade, Sigourney Weaver in the Alien movies, Linda Hamilton in T2, Grace Jones in Conan the Destroyer, and Cote de Pablo (Ziva) in NCIS. Smart, physical, action-hero women. More of those. Yes.

Di

I so far have manage my personal word quota on 70 Days of Sweat. But then, my deadline is June and I know I need to get in high gear. But I’m already tired (that was just a little whine).

Di

I definitely think that ANYONE risks offending women –and some men– if they don’t research what effect that kind of trauma really has on a person. I’d throw the book across the room, too, if they had the woman later fall in love with her abuser. However, stranger things have happened, unfortunately. The relationship, for example, between abuser and abused in an incestuous situation. It’s not love exactly. But it can be there. I’ve done a bit of reading on the subject since I have a loved one who is a victim of incest.

And what’s a hot button for me? That would be twisting my religious beliefs in such a way as to fool readers into thinking it’s how all adherents to that faith believe. Same thing. Do the research or piss people off. And maybe some writers are okay with pissing some people off for the sake of a sensational story. Certainly brought in the bucks for Dan Brown. But it also annoyed me that people took it as other than fiction. It’s a novel! Dumb sheep annoy me, too.

I don’t know if this is a hot button or just an annoyance, but stereotyping is way up there for me. I talk to my tv quite often. Especially when the women are running from the bad guy in heels. They’re much better as weapons than get away shoes. I love the character Sarah Connor of the new Terminator series. We need more smart women. The Earth is full of them. Why can’t we find them on the screen?

Anyway, maybe part of the problem is having characters who are *so* self-assured that rape is a somewhat obvious choice by the author.

One of the complaints that earlier discussion was that the rapist was the only fan in the story. (Possibly the only fan in that universe.) I’ve talked with someone who was sexually assaulted in fandom, and one of the worst things was the fans who couldn’t believe it happened in their beloved sub-culture.

As for The Stars My Destination, Bester gets points from me for having the woman who was raped show up later in the novel. She’s very angry at Gully Foyle.

Now that the world has had a bit more experience with terrorism, how does rape compare to tossing slugs of PyrE into crowds so that people will learn how to teleport across space and wake up to their lives? Until someone pointed out hints from the narration, I wasn’t sure the human race survived, and it’s a reasonable implication that many people died.

If you haven’t read the book, PyrE is a total conversion explosive (much more powerful than nuclear explosives) which is set off by thought.

It is interesting that unless the author underlines a rape, a lot of readers may not notice it.

As for hot buttons, a big one for me is a woman forcing herself to have sex she doesn’t want.